Situation

TKC’s clients are businesses that desire customized web applications to meet their business needs most efficiently. His current client list is centered on mobile phone service businesses including pre-cellular service resellers. Trevor’s team creates custom web applications for his clients. Specifically, one of his current applications allows third-party resellers to automatically renew/check usage of their respective cell-phone consumers. This application principally requires enhanced security for the safeguarding of sensitive customer information.

In the past, TKC ensured the security and reliability of customer data by deploying their own infrastructure in a colocation facility. Typically, Trevor and his team would manage the systems, including data replication. The replication of this data is an absolute must, as these applications store critical customer information. These physical servers were also supplemented by physical firewalls. The configuration and management of replication in the colocated environment was costly, but necessary to protect customer data.

“I’ve made reliability and security our top priority in design, development and hosting,” said Trevor, CEO and Founder of TKC. “Since we store extremely sensitive data, our applications must be secure.”

Trevor was seeking a cloud provider to support future web applications, and to provide sufficient security and reliability for his current data. Migrating from a colocation facility to the cloud would allow TKC better control of their server environments. For example, Trevor sought the ability to make incremental changes and spin up new instances quickly. More importantly, Trevor needed a cloud that could meet TKC’s security and reliability requirements.

This transition from a colo to the ProfitBricks cloud has been a no-brainer for me. The virtualized environment gives us finer control over our resources, and the cost is significantly less as well. Not every cloud is fine-tuned for the type of security that we require. ProfitBricks fills this void perfectly, giving great security and reliability with their solution. The ‘DCD’ lets me create new instances easily and I love the flexibility that it allows. The data is secured in a safe and redundant environment, and as I grow my client base, I look forward to reassuring future customers about our devotion to safeguarding their data.

Trevor Keith, TK Consulting

Solution

Nearly a year ago, Trevor began surveying the cloud computing market and approached ProfitBricks with his concerns. He cited security concerns and examples from his current applications and found ProfitBricks to be a perfect match.

“ProfitBricks is really the only provider that suited my needs,” said Keith. “Security features like virtualized firewalls and private backend networks are very easy to implement.”

ProfitBricks allowed Trevor to replicate TKC’s existing environments on ProfitBricks’ virtual servers to safeguard the sensitive information. TKC’s cost of managing physical servers in their colocation environment was significantly higher than emulating a similar environment with ProfitBricks.

The ProfitBricks team worked alongside Trevor’s team to meet every goal, providing insight on features and addressing his concerns.

I really like the ProfitBricks approach with data center fire zones; it keeps very high reliability in case of a failure. I know that my customers’ data is instantly replicated and is safe in case of a server failure. The colocation approach to replication was costly in comparison.

Trevor Keith, TK Consulting

Benefits

“ProfitBricks has been great; the support team is knowledgeable and quickly answers our questions. They mentioned that they’ve hired a team to do self-penetration testing to spot weaknesses in their systems. It’s good to know that they’re consciously and proactively making security improvements and testing their systems.”

“I really like the ProfitBricks approach with data center fire zones; it keeps very high reliability in case of a failure. I know that my customers’ data is instantly replicated and is safe in case of a server failure. The colocation approach to replication was costly in comparison,” said Trevor.

Trevor has so far described his experience with ProfitBricks as fantastic and efficient. He enjoys taking advantage of ProfitBricks’ redundant storage, a key element of maintaining trust and ensuring the security of customer data. The process of replication is fully automated. The ProfitBricks storage platform replicates the data in two physically separate zones in the data center at 80Gbp/s.

ProfitBricks enables agile development flexibility as TKC works on new applications. Trevor uses the ProfitBricks API in coordination with the Data Center Designer. This allows him to design customized environments within secure and adapted server environments. He can use the API to create additional instances as test environments for new applications.